Category: Article

While their movie Run Ronnie Run languishes at New Line Cinema, the comedy duo of Bob Odenkirk and David Cross has released the first two seasons of their now-legendary HBO program, Mr. Show , on DVD. The sketch comedy follows in the tradition other recent HBO hooters such as The Larry Sanders Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm in being too intelligent, ironic, and daring for network television—and maybe too much for cable, too. The two-disc DVD set features both seasons, plus extras including commentary featuring fellow cast members. The collection should stand you in good stead until Odenkirk and Cross bring Mr. Show to the local stage. State Theater, (612) 339-7007

On a recent weeknight, we had the few odds and ends to pick up at the Mall of America and decided to see what was cooking at Napa Valley Grille. Chef Tom Anderson was up to his usual stuff, so it was extremely hard to decide what to order—not that the menu is terribly long, just thoroughly interesting. We looked to the wine list and were equally challenged. The list, filled exclusively with California wines (get it?), gives some helpful hints: a short list of “unique” whites and reds and an interesting sampler flight for those of us Undecideds who often end up ordering combo meals. Having been recently introduced to the Steele Wineries, we decided on their ’98 Pinot Noir, from Bien Nacido Vineyards near Santa Barbara. From that exceptional bottle, everything became easier, and it seemed we could make no errors in our other choices. Our patient waitress, on her fourth try, finally coaxed our order from us. For an appetizer, we passed on the escargot in favor of fantastic pan-roasted mussels with tiny red potatoes, tomatoes, and a salsa verde. The salads held their own—with an unusual smoked trout dressing on the Caesar, and figs, Stilton, and walnuts to punch up the Arugula. (Never pass up anything prepared with figs: that’s our motto.) After satisfying entrees of salmon and a beef tenderloin special of the day, we turned our heads for the first time during the meal, to see that the Vikings were on the TV in the bar, and the Mall was, in fact, still out there. We considered our surroundings over an after-dinner sip of Beaulieau Muscat, and felt we’d seen more of Napa Valley than Bloomington, Minnesota, that day. Napa Valley Grille, (952) 858-9934

So you walk out of a late show at the Uptown Theater on a Friday night and your stomach is angry with you for stuffing it with Sour Patch Kids and popcorn instead of dinner. You only have $10 in your pocket and you don’t feel like sitting in a dingy, smoky bar waiting for a greasy waiter to serve greasy food. One of your friends suggests Perkins, but your stomach growls in disgust. What should you do? Stagger a few blocks north to the Uptown Diner, one of the Cities’ great unsung secrets. The Uptown Diner has long been a popular place to get a coffee and a muffin or a breakfast big enough to last you until dinner. Now open Thursday through Saturday nights until 3:30 a.m., it’s the perfect place for an early morning smorgasbord. As for the poor fools still stuck in the coffeehouse chains? The diner’s giant, fluffy pancakes made from scratch and the hash browns made from fresh potatoes will make them wonder what in the world they were thinking. Uptown Diner, (612) 874-0481

Top honors for the July 11 Op-Ed Slam went to Tim Shea of Minneapolis.

Judges were an assortment of folks who were challenged by the wide range of 3-minute presentations. Some sang, some shouted, some railed, some simply read, and some waxed poetic. Some had opinions.

Other awards went to Colleen Kruse of The Rake fame (see one of her entries in this month’s column) and Omaur Bliss.

Read Tim, Colleen and Omaur’s slams on the following pages

Being a concise survey of bizarre coincidences in the life of real public figures and wholly manufactured fictional characters.

1. Astonishingly, Garrison Keillor was included in the top 10 of Playgirl’s sexiest men of 1986. Others on that list included Sen. Robert Dole, Billy Crystal, William “The Refrigerator” Perry and Donald Trump—so one begins to sense how horribly wrong things had gone with that particular list.

2. Keillor suffered this exact fate during a recent performance of A Prairie Home Companion. His fly remained down, though he knew the audience knew he knew.

3. Keillor’s first piece in the New Yorker appeared in 1970.

4. Michael Fedo’s biography of Keillor, The Man From Lake Wobegon (St. Martin’s Press, New York 1987), documents donor friction at KSJN over Keillor’s format choices in the early 70s, leading to a series of Keillor resignations and re-hirings.

5. “St. Paul is a city that does not mind having a class D baseball team. Minneapolis is a city that would die if it were associated with Sioux Falls and Fargo and Duluth. They would absolutely perish. So that’s why God made us number 2.” Garrison Keillor to the St. Paul City Council. Star Tribune, October 25, 2001, p.3B.

6. See St. Paul Pioneer Press, August 9, 2002.

7. Protagonist John Tollefson loses his job as a public radio station manager over a “douche bag” joke in Wobegon Boy, Garrison Keillor, (Penguin Books, 1997).

8. Michael Fedo made a similar, if kinder statement regarding Garrison Keillor’s red socks.

9. “I look like a tree toad who has changed into a boy but not completely.” Lake Wobegon Summer 1956, Garrison Keillor, (Viking/Penguin, 2001), p. 18.

10. You don’t believe us, do you. Check it out: Zeus changed his lover Io into a white cow to conceal her from his wife. She was discovered by Hera, who sent a gadfly to chase her through Egypt. She came to rest in the Aegean sea on the island named for her—Ios.

11. The similarly named Greenspring Companies was the holding company of for-profit Rivertown Trading Company, which began in 1981 to handle sales of Powdermilk Biscuit merchandise. Under pressure from an investigation by the state Attorney General’s office into the for-profit partnership with non-profit Minnesota Public Radio, Greenspring unloaded Rivertown to Dayton-Hudson Corp. for $120 million in 1998. Bill Kling was bought out for a reported $2.6 million.

12. MPR routinely declines to disclose Keillor’s earnings from APHC and Writers’ Almanac.

13. Twenty five cents per word.

14. Keillor savages one of his families in “Family Honeymoon,” a chapter in We Are Still Married, Garrison Keillor, (Penguin Books, USA, Inc. 1990), pp.188-191.

15. “The newspaper will walk up to your house and pee on your roses.” We Are Still Married, p. 143.

16. Something similar was printed on an invitation to Keillor’s wedding to Ulla Skaerved, as reported by the Pioneer Press, December 29, 1985.

17. Both Rick Shefchick and Nick Coleman verify that, contrary to a legend that maintains traction to this day, Coleman was at the Star Tribune when the Pioneer Press published Keillor’s Portland Avenue address in 1986.

18. In 1995, MPR and the Democratic National Committee exchanged donor lists, and MPR admitted to purchasing such lists from the DNC prior to then. In 1996, MPR bought donor names from the Wellstone for Senate campaign. (Pioneer Press, July 24 1999, p. 2D.) In 1986, after Lake Wobegon themes were used to promote a DFL fundraising appearance by Garrison Keillor, Bill Kling wrote the Pioneer Press to express dismay over the “crass use of public radio programs and images to promote the DFL party.” (Pioneer Press, October 18, 1986.)

19. Keillor complained, “I wrote a book called Lake Wobegon Days. They put me in my place but good. They marked my front yard with orange rinds . . .” We Are Still Married, p. 141.

20. See the New York Times, March 2 1988, p. 1C. One of the most startlingly sycophantic interviews conceivable of any person, ever.

21. Noah Adams bravely stuck it out for one year as Keillor’s replacement on MPR’s APHC replacement, Good Evening.

22. MPR has declined to disclose endorsement fees collected from SelectComfort for Keillor’s weekly sales pitch for their product. Ditto Premier Radio, distributor for Rush Limbaugh, who reads a nearly identical script for them. SelectComfort has also declined to disclose what they pay for their advertising with Keillor and Limbaugh.

23. Valente is smarter than he appears. He is quoting The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925), p. 182.

Academy of the Holy Angels
http://www.ahastars.org
6600 Nicollet Ave S
Richfield, MN 55423
(612) 798-2600
Roman Catholic; Upper School, 800 students; 80% of applicants accepted; avg. class size 23; Tuition: $7200; Fees: registration $200, transportation $600; 25% students receive financial aid; Athletics balanced participatory/competitive; Languages: Spanish, French, German; 8 AP offerings; 40% take SAT; 70% take ACT; 92% of grads admitted to college; top colleges enrolled class of 2002: U of MN, St. Thomas, Marquette, U of M Duluth, U of Wisconsin Madison.

The Blake School
http://www.blakeschool.org
Northrop Campus (Upper school)
511 Kenwood Parkway
Minneapolis, MN 55403
(952) 988-3700
No religious affiliation; Upper school, 432 students; 60% of applicants accepted; avg. class size 15; Tuition: $15,650; Fees: lunch $950, transportation $1145; approx. 18% students receive Fin. Aid; Athletics balanced participatory/competitive; Languages: Spanish, French, German, Russian; 11 AP offerings; 100% of students take SAT/ACT; top colleges enrolled class of 2002: Dartmouth, UW-Madison, Washington U. (St. Louis), Harvard, Colorado College, Georgetown, Northwestern, Trinity.

Breck School
http://www.breckschool.org
123 Ottawa Ave N
Minneapolis, MN 55422
(763) 381-8100
Episcopalian; Upper school, 386 students; 19% applicants accepted; avg. class size 18; Tuition: $14,210; approx 15% students receive Fin. Aid; Athletics balanced participatory/competitive; Languages: Spanish, French, German, Chinese; 13 AP offerings; 100% of students take SAT/ACT; top colleges enrolled class of 2002: Georgetown, Carleton, Skidmore, Union, Boston College, U of Denver, George Washington, U of Southern California.

Cretin-Derham Hall
http://www.cretin-derhamhall.pvt.k12.mn.us
550 South Albert Street
St. Paul, MN 55116
(651) 690-2443
Survey not completed; Roman Catholic; Upper school, 1290 students; avg. class size 20; 50% of students receive financial aid; Athletics are competitive; Languages: French, German, Spanish, Latin; 7 AP courses; 81% of students attend 4 year college.

Convent of the Visitation School
http://www.visitation.net
2455 Visitation Drive
Mendota Heights, MN 55120
(651) 683-1700
Roman Catholic; all girls; upper school, 284 students; avg. class size 16; Tuition: $11,700; Fees: lunch: $600, books: $50, transportation: $700-$1000; 23% of students receive financial aid; Athletics balanced participatory/competitive; Languages: French, Spanish, Latin; 9 AP courses; above 90% of students take SAT/ACT; top colleges enrolled class of 2002: St. Thomas, Lewis & Clark, U of MN, Notre Dame, Boston U.

International School of Minnesota
http://www.ism-sabis.net
6385 Beach Road
Eden Prairie, MN 55344
(952) 918-1800
Upper School, 120 students; 65% applicants accepted; avg. class size 12; Tuition: $10,000; Fees: $500 books, $1800 transportation; 30% of students receive financial aid; Athletics balanced participatory/competitive; Languages: French, Spanish; 20 AP offerings; 100% students take SAT; 90% take ACT; top colleges enrolled class of 2002: U of MN, Carleton, Cal Tech, Syracuse NY, Grinnell, Macalester.

Mounds Park Academy
http://www.moundsparkacademy.org
2051 East Larpenteur Ave
St. Paul, MN 55109
(651) 777-2555
Upper School, 250 students; avg. class size 17 (K-12); Tuition: $14,140; 8% of students receive financial aid; Athletics balanced participatory/competitive; Languages: French, Spanish; 5 AP courses; 100% take SAT/ACT exam; 100% admitted to college.

Saint Paul Academy
http://www.spa.edu
1712 Randolph Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55105
(651) 698-2451
Survey not completed; Upper School, approx. 380 students; Athletics balanced participatory/competitive; 100% of students admitted to college.

Saint Thomas Academy
http://www.cadets.com
949 Mendota Heights Rd.
Mendota Heights, MN 55120
(651) 454-4570
Roman Catholic, all boys; upper school, 530 students; 90% applicants accepted; Tuition: $11,000; Fees: ~$1725; 25% receive financial aid; Athletics balanced participatory/competitive; Languages: French, Spanish, Latin; 11 AP courses; 75% take SAT; 95% take ACT; top colleges enrolled class of 2002: U of St. Thomas, UMD, Creighton, St. Norbert, UW Madison, St. Johns.

Totino-Grace High School
http://www.totinograce.org
1350 Gardena Ave. NE
Fridley MN, 55432
(763) 571-9116
Roman Catholic, 1100 students; 95% applicants accepted; avg. class size 22; Tuition: $7,350; Fees: transportation, $600-$700; 15-20% of students receive financial aid; Athletics balanced participatory/competitive; Languages: French, German, Spanish; 3 AP courses; 10% take SAT; 95% take ACT; 95% students admitted to college.

Smart people send their kids to private schools, right? Maybe not. Even as vouchers become a reality, and public school budgets get bodyslammed, your options may be growing.

I am the product of a private high school. Not one of the toney schools that serve as the Ivy League of the Twin Cities, but what passed for one in Omaha-the Jesuit school.

There was no pretense of Christian humility when it came to Creighton Prep. We were the best at everything from the math and Latin contests to the four state sport championships we won my senior year. Top performance was encouraged and expected in all areas. The culture of the student body, at least in the classes I was in, was to respect the guys who got great grades as much as the guys who hit home runs. Often they were the same guys.

The teachers, from the beginning of freshman year, treated us like men. (There were no girls.) If you got good grades on the tests, you didn’t have to turn in, or even do, your rote homework. For sophomore American History we had to read an extra book of our own choosing each quarter and make an oral book report to the teacher after school. One time I was surprised that the only question I got on the book was, “Did you read it Mr. Bartel?” I answered truthfully, “Yes.” “That’s good enough for me,” said Father O’Leary.

We had lots of homework, and though we rarely had to turn in pages of math or physics problems or Latin conjugations, we were tested frequently on whether or not we were keeping up. And for those who weren’t, the punishment was clear. You would have to start doing all those problems again.

The English curriculum in particular was extraordinarily rigorous and holistic. Freshman English was concerned mostly with how to read literature. We read classic short stories, some poetry and a few short novels, but concentrated on learning how to think about them. We learned new words such as denouement and catharsis. We learned to distinguish climax from conclusion and to recognize irony. Transferred epithets did not trouble us. Onomatopoeia and synecdoche were our friends. Sophomore year started with creation stories from various cultures including Babylonian, East Indian, Native American, and Hebrew, and progressed through the Oedipus plays, Arthurian legend, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Dickens. Junior year we got Swift, the Book of Job, Hawthorne, Melville, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Salinger. Senior year started with James Joyce and then explained him by reading Homer, Virgil, Beowulf, the Niebelungenlied, and the Song of Roland. And for three years, we wrote an English paper every week.

My friends who went to public school didn’t do this. Their math curriculum was more advanced than ours, but while we took history, they had social studies. While we took Latin and another language for four years, many of them didn’t take language at all. What did all that mean? Less than I thought at the time. Because the public schools, at least the ones I knew, taught many of the same books, grouped students by ability levels, and sent their best grads to the top colleges. Is that as true today? Perhaps. But the indications are that many public schools are only now getting back to a more rigorous education after a long experiment with something unrecognizable to many of us.

Research assistance by Matt Bartel

As clichéd as the word “community” has become at Breck, I still have to admit that it’s accurate.

There is a degree of trust and mutual respect among students that separates Breck from larger schools where you’re lucky if you’re able to recognize everyone in your class let alone name them. The comfortable environment makes it much easier to be an individual. And because the trusting atmosphere originates in the classroom, those who succeed academically are as accepted and admired as those who excel in athletics.

I would always laugh when I walked into the library to find half a dozen students, jocks, thespians, math nerds, and student council members, arguing over the best way to solve a physics problem. “No, damn it, you have the magnetic field rotating the wrong direction about the electric current,” I’d hear someone scream jokingly.

More often than not, the person at the center of the table madly scribbling the answer was a guy named Jonathan. In addition to being the biggest geek ever to wield a TI-89 scientific graphing calculator, Jonathan was the most respected kid in the school.

My proudest moment in the seven years I spent at Breck was when Jonathan was elected homecoming king. We could have voted for the leading scorer on the hockey team or the class president, but we chose Jonathan because we admired him for his intelligence and friendliness.

The bonds among students were equaled by the strong relationships between students and the faculty. Most teachers’ doors were always open and many students socialized with teachers when class wasn’t in session. One of the most popular senior hangouts was the office of the Dean of Students. With several cushioned chairs and a basketball hoop, Mr. Bergene’s office was always open to students who wanted to lounge around or play a game of hall-hockey with one of his many confiscated hockey sticks. The chess board in the upper-school office always had a crowd around it, too. Dozens gathered to see Mr. Anderson mercilessly checkmate anyone who dared challenge him.

But the thing I enjoyed the most during my time at Breck was the camaraderie and spirit of the students. Breck has had a surprising amount of athletic success for its small student body. And rarely is there a sporting event without several dozen rowdy fans. The biggest athletic event of the year is always the hockey game between our noble Mustangs and the despised Blake Bears. Last year, my friend Jon and I, the self-appointed tailgating superfans, set up a pre-game fiesta in the parking lot of Blake’s ice arena. More than a third of the school stood in the bitter cold blasting music from car stereos and eating burgers hot off the grill. And when our team arrived, we followed them into the arena with drums, trombones, trumpets, kazoos, and whistles. We outnumbered the home crowd by a large margin. As the game ended, the Mustangs scored their sixth goal while we sang the Alma Mater.

The camaraderie at Breck extended beyond athletics, though. On our traditional senior skip day, I hosted the entire class at my house for breakfast. Jon and I organized 10 cooks to turn out pancakes, waffles, eggs, bacon, sausage, and hash browns for 80 people. We spent the rest of the day together picnicking on Lake Calhoun before returning to school in the afternoon to watch a lacrosse match. As a gift to the seniors, the freshman class paid for the entire day out of their class fund.

We were unified as a school and as a class, but we also celebrated individual victories. When Mike, the hardest working student in my class, was finally accepted to Notre Dame after being put on the waiting list, I remember several students being more excited for Mike than they were about getting into college themselves.

It was especially difficult leaving a place like Breck where many of the graduates had seen each other every day for as many as 15 years. I feel the growing tension in my classmates’ minds as we spread apart in anticipation of a new life. But having finally become adults, there is a sense of accomplishment that makes us closer now than we’ve ever been. The fellowship formed in our years at Breck will not be easily replaced or forgotten.

Getting Into Harvard
What does it take these days?

Will graduating at the top of the class from a good Twin Cities private school get your child into Harvard? No, but it won’t necessarily hurt. According to the U.S. News and World Report compilation of college admissions information for 2001, 34 percent of the students admitted to Harvard College came from private high schools. “We don’t hold private schools against anybody,” says Marlyn McGrath Lewis, Director of Admissions of Harvard College, with a touch of irony. “We don’t admit high schools. We admit students.” By the U.S. News measurement, Harvard is the toughest college to get into in the country. When you look beyond the fact that Harvard admitted only 10 percent of its applicants last year to some of the details behind the numbers, the task of getting into Harvard is even more daunting.
Lewis says that, of the more than 19,000 applicants for the 1,650 places in the freshman class, 87 percent were “qualified to do [Harvard] work with a measure of grace.” Of those, 347 applicants had perfect 1600 SAT scores. Fewer than half of those were admitted. Nearly 3,000 of the applicants had ranked first in their high school class. Only 20 percent of those were admitted.
So, what does get you into Harvard?
It’s not all academic.

About 300 students were admitted on the basis of their scholarship as reviewed by Harvard faculty in their field. But, for most applicants, the high school record serves only as a guideline. The objective tests, such as the SAT exams, provide some means of comparison of applicants, and some means of gauging “what the grades at the school mean.” But again, Lewis doesn’t put much weight on high school preparation. “We try not to reward over-preparation. For example, we can teach people to write, so we’re not necessarily disinclined to take someone from a school where the literary education isn’t as good.” Lewis said they look for the “DE”—the distinguishing excellence. “We look for something that will let us choose them over someone else. Are they a musician, a hockey player, or did they work 40 hours a week to help support their family?”

Does that have anything to do with the applicant’s high school? No and yes. “We ask what they have done with the opportunities they have had. If the school has minimal academics, we ask where the student spent his time. We don’t necessarily value a school that determines what you do 18 hours a day,” she said.

“There is no sure route to the best colleges, but as a general rule, put [your student] in a school where he is comfortable enough to develop his talent. Try to send your kid to a place that has intellectual values that you value. If a high school has the right culture, it will encourage the student to read thoughtfully. Choose an environment like that—that knows and loves every kid, if you have a choice. If you can choose a school where talents are honored and developed, do it. Most aren’t that lucky.”

At schools like Harvard, she added, “It is never just the point of admissions to have students who can get As here. We will take some with more visible flaws. For us it’s a game of futures. We place bets on people who will make a significant contribution to society after graduation.”

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